Royals Win First Title In 30 Years

The night belonged to Matt Harvey and the New York Mets up until the ninth inning, but that was not enough to lead New York to a victory as the resilient Kansas City Royals stormed back to steal yet another game from the Mets.

Harvey was better than Harvey has been this whole season, he was lights out shutting down the Royals for eight innings, but in the bottom of the inning, manager Terry Collins informed Harvey through pitching coach Dan Warthen that his night was done.

Up to that point, Harvey’s line was, 8 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K’s.

But that did not sink in well with Harvey as he fought tooth and nails to stay in the game and at the end, the skipper went back with his Ace.

Prior to Harvey’s stance, the Mets put him in a position to win the game as Curtis Granderson hit a lead-off home run in the first to put New York up 1-0. Then in the bottom of the sixth, they tacked on another run on a sac fly off the bat of Lucas Duda to go up 2-0.

It may not have been the right call to leave Harvey in the game, but he sure did deserve the opportunity, but he walked the first batter and allowed a double to Eric Hosmer over Michael Conforto‘s head in left field.

Collins then summoned Jeurys Familia to close out the game, but with Hosmer at third, and one out, Salvadaor Perez, the eventual series MVP, hit a soft ground ball to third, with the infield in, and David Wright looked Hosmer back to third and threw to first for the out.

Hosmer bounced around third the whole play, waited for Wright to make the throw and he bolted for home. Lucas Duda took the throw for the out but his relay to the plate was wide right, more than eight feet away pulling Travis d’Arnaud away from the play and allowing Hosmer to score the tying run. Just a gutsy move by the Royals first baseman and a missed opportunity by the Mets to get the final out and send the series back to Kansas City.

With both teams tied at 2-2, the game went into extras innings, and the Royals took control in the top of the 12th scoring four runs highlighted by a single off the bat of pinch hitter Christian Colon, scoring Jarrod Dyson from third to give the Royals their first lead of the game at 3-2. They would tack on three more runs to extend the lead to 7-2.

The Mets did not muster much in the extra innings, only a walk and a single to their credit, but it was not enough, as closer Wade Davis shut the door in the bottom of the 12th sending the Royals to their first title in 30 years.

The better team won the 2015 World Series, but the other enjoyed a coming out party, as both teams are set up to be successful for many years to come.

Our congrats to the Kansas City Royals on winning their 2nd title in franchise history.

David is the Founder and Executive Editor of Legends On Deck®. He was a Senior Editor for MetsMerizedOnline, MetsMinors.net and Contributor for Hardballchat.com. David's idea forLegends on Deck is to be a site where passionate fans of the game have a place to read about their favorite baseball teams. The site is also for people who had a talent to write or even take photographs and have the platform to share. The passion of following the Minor Leagues can be seen all over the site as the players journey's are what what drives the LOD team to share their content. David's passion is making available a site that people can have fun sharing and reading.